Home of Richard Mitchell – XPO Game Festival Project Lead & Head of Tulsa Game Developers – Working to boost Tulsa, OK's tech & game dev industries. Former Reviews Editor at Joystiq (RIP). Member of the Oregon Trail Generation.

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I first saved an empty draft of this post in April of 2014. I was approaching the beginning of my eighth year with Joystiq and reflecting on everything I’d done in what once seemed like an impossible career.

If you’ve been keeping up with the (admittedly insular) world of video game news, you’ll know that quite a lot has changed in the intervening months. Joystiq, as it was, no longer exists. I can’t say that I’m grateful for its closure, though that hasn’t blunted my gratitude for all that Joystiq has brought me. When I was 23, it enabled me to earn a living doing something I loved, a privilege that very few get to enjoy. The job was always just a job though. Certainly I loved it, but, as I’ve written elsewhere, I try not to define myself by what I do. It’s easy to conflate work, hobbies and passions with self-identity, but I think people are a much more appropriate measurement. In that regard, I am extraordinarily wealthy. Joystiq has introduced me to some of the most wonderful people a person could meet, many of whom I’m fortunate enough to call my friends. I’m eternally grateful to everyone I’ve worked with at Joystiq. Continue reading “8 years of gratitude”

Joystiq has announced that MTV is looking for recollections of vivid gaming moments. I submitted mine, although my most vivid memory isn’t me actually playing a game. Read on to feel my everlasting shame.

This wasn’t related to playing a game, but it’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever done to obtain one.

It was winter and I was still in high school. It was a Friday and heavy snow had cancelled classes that day. I had just gotten enough money to pick up a used Nintendo 64 and a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I still couldn’t drive so I begged my mother to take me out to get my game. The roads were really bad, but she agreed to take me. We went to a pawn shop and got the Nintendo 64 just fine. On the way to the mall, however, we had an accident. Coming around a corner, we hit some black ice and my mother’s car spun out of control. The car hit the curb, jamming the wheel into the wheel well. Not long after that, another car careened into my mother’s.

We were then stuck out in the snow, a half mile away from the mall. We called a tow truck and waited. After some time, I asked my mother if I could just go ahead and walk up to the mall and get the game. She said yes. I walked away, leaving my mother alone in the cold so that I could get my game.

I got it. And it was a thing of beauty. To this day I feel kind of bad about it. I still think it was worth it though. After all, it would have been a wasted trip otherwise, right?